1912 Brush. Roadster

Brush Motor Company, or the "Brush Runabout Company," based in Detroit, Michigan, was founded by Alanson Partridge Brush (1878 - 1952) who had designed the engine of the first single cylinder Cadillac. The popular Brush runabout was designed as a light car with wooden chassis (actually wooden rails and iron cross-members), friction drive transmission and "underslung" coil springs in tension instead of compression on all four axles. Although there were many makes of small runabouts of similar size and one to four cylinders at this time (before the Model T Ford dominated the low-price market), the Brush has many unusual design details showing the inventiveness of its creator. Power was provided by a large single-cylinder water-cooled engine. Two gas-powered headlamps provided light, along with a gas-powered light in the rear. The frame, axles, and wheels were made of oak, hickory or maple, and were either left plain or painted to match the trim. The horn was located next to the engine cover, with a metal tube running to a squeeze bulb affixed by the driver. A small storage area was provided in the rear, with a drawer accessible under the rear of the seat.

A feature of engines designed by Brush (who also designed the first Oakland Motor Car, ancestor of Pontiac and who helped design the original one-cylinder Cadillac engine) was that they ran counter-clockwise instead of the usual clockwise, which, in those days before the invention of the electric starter, was Brush's idea intended to make them safer for a right-handed person to crank-start by hand. With clockwise-running engines, many injuries were sustained, most often dislocated thumbs and broken forearms, if the hand crank kicked back on starting, especially if the car was not properly adjusted before starting, or the person cranking it did not follow correct safety procedures, including fully retarding the manual spark advance, keeping the thumb alongside the fingers instead of around the crank, and pulling the crank upward in a half turn, never in a full circle or pushing down.
Apart from the unusual features of the counter-clockwise rotation of the 6hp engine of the original Runabout was the, left hand drive, solid tyres and a curious friction clutch which it was claimed eliminated the need for a gearbox. It was hastily replaced by a 2 speed epicyclic gearbox for 1908 and the solid tyres were supplemented by pneumatics in 1908nd only available to special order after 1910. A Brush with a 2 cylinder engine, longer wheelbase and a dickey seat was seen at the 1908 New York Auto Show, but does not seem to have gone into production. A 4 seater and a closed coupe appeared in 1910 and delivery vans were also made.
In 1909 Briscoe built a new factory for manufacture of the Brush, which he said would be the largest in the automobile business. Production jumped from about 2,000 in 1909 to 10,000 a year later. In 1910 Frank's brother Benjamin Briscoe formed the United States Motor Corporation as a reply to Bill Durant's General Motors. It was a vast and unwieldy conglomerate with six car makers and about 130 component firms. Of the car makers only Brush and Maxwell were profitable, but funds were switched around between the various divisions of the corporation which did not help Brush. Also the market for single cylinder cars was dwindling. A basic 2 seater called the Liberty-Brush was introduced in 1912 and was the only model for 1913. At 4350 it was very cheap, but production did not last out the year 1913. A.P.Brush, meanwhile, had left the company to join Oakland for which he designed a 2 cylinder engine, also with counter-clockwise rotation. He later set up a consultancy with his brother William and made many useful contributions to car design, including the double transverse rear suspension used on the Marmon 34, Monroe, Saxon-Duplex and Elgin, and the Z-section frame in which the running boards stiffened the main frame.
In 1912, Francis Birtles drove a Brush while becoming the first person drive across the Australian continent from west to east.

The Brush Runabout Company, along with Maxwell-Briscoe, Stoddard-Dayton, and others formed Benjamin Briscoe's United States Motor Company from 1910, ending when that company failed in 1913. Runabouts, in general, fell out of vogue quickly, partly due to the lack of protection from the weather.